04w31:2 Jerry Saltz and Bad Reviews – Art Criticism Part 2 Posted July 27th, 2004 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2004 week 31 number 2 (Jerry Saltz and Bad Reviews – a.c. part 2) ——————————————————————— Learning on the Job | Jerry Saltz http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/saltz/saltz9-11-02.asp “To me, theory and positions are important, but they often lead to dogmatic thinking, obscure writing and rigid taste. Knowing where you’re coming from means knowing what you like before you like it and hating what you hate before you hate it. This takes all the life out of art. Theory is about understanding. Art is about experience. Theory is neat. Art is not. My only position is to let the reader in on my feelings; try to write in straightforward, jargon-free language; not oversimplify or dumb down my responses; aim to have an idea, a judgment or a description in every sentence; not take too much for granted; explain how artists might be original or derivative and how they use techniques and materials; observe whether they’re developing or standing still; provide context; and make judgments that hopefully amount to something more than just my opinion. To do this requires more than a position or a theory. It requires something else. This something else is what art, and criticism, are all about”. Article Date 11 September 2002 A chat with Jerry Saltz, part one | Tyler Green and Jerry Saltz http://www.artsjournal.com/man/archives20040701.shtml#82745 “I was – and still am – sick of critics quoting from the same seven writers to support their ideas. If I read one more review that begins with a quote from Barthes or Baudrillard I’m going to slit my wrists.” A chat with Jerry Saltz, part two | Tyler Green and Jerry Saltz http://www.artsjournal.com/man/archives20040701.shtml#82777 “The one thing you don’t want to be, in my eye, is a local critic who is merely a booster, someone just writing on the artists from your zip code or gender or sexuality or political base. This is very bad. Another lucky thing about New York is our bigness. However, it’s also its great disadvantage. In London, say, everybody is sleeping together, eating together, arguing with one another? If a new artist appears, everybody in the whole termite nation is aware of that on the same night more ore less. New York is so huge that ? there are lots of different parties going on at the same time. We don’t really know about one another that much. There are many parallel art worlds in New York. I think that’s pretty exciting as long as you make it your own business to get out of your own party as much possible. ” The Art of the Bad Review | Andy Lamey http://www.walrusmagazine.com/article.pl?sid=04/06/09/1658236&tid=1 “What literature needs most is a new and abusive school of criticism. So wrote Rebecca West in 1914, in an essay called ‘The Duty of Harsh Criticism.’ Book reviewers were too kind, she argued, and literary standards debased. English departments were remarkable only for the shocking amounts of unreadable writing they produced. Then there was the ‘formidable army of Englishmen’ who had managed to become men of letters without having written anything: ‘They throw up platitudinous inaugural addresses like wormcasts, they edit the letters of the unprotected dead, and chew once more the more masticated portions of history.’ There is now no criticism in England, she concluded. ‘There is merely a chorus of weak cheers . . . a mild kindliness that neither heats to enthusiasm nor reverses to anger.’ It’s hard to believe West’s essay appeared ninety years ago; what is striking about reading it today is how familiar it sounds” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Tuesday 27 July 2004 @ 10:52 PM
04w31:1 Art Criticism Part 1 Posted July 27th, 2004 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2004 week 31 number 1 (art criticism Pt 1) Being a regular reader of Sally McKay’s and Jennifer McMackon’s blogs, I’ve become entangled in a discussion and questioning of contemporary art criticism. I’ve tried to sort out the postings below, but keep in mind that the comments section of each contains more material. Along the way, Jerry Saltz pops up, who offers insight into his role as a critic in an article from two years ago. Part 2 will consist of the links to his articles, plus another related article on the need for more ‘bad reviews’ of books. – Timothy ——————————————————————— James Elkins on Our Moribund Critical Discourse | Dan Hopewell http://tinyurl.com/4qmtv “I recently digested SAIC art history smarty James Elkins’ What Happened to Art Criticism? from Prickly Paradigm Press, a problematic and at times messy essay (but one that is also thought provoking and often dead right). Of particular interest to me was Elkins’ refutation of several proposed solutions to contemporary art criticism’s woes”. Followups here and here. What Happened to Art Criticism? | Timothy Quigley http://quigley.blogs.com/asymptote/2004/07/what_happened_t.html “Dan Hopewell over at Iconoduel has a review of James Elkins’ book, What Happened to Art Criticism?. Elkins surveys the contemporary state of art criticism and examines the prospects for developing a new approach. If I read the review correctly, it sounds as if he dismisses any attempts to build on past critical traditions as hopelessly ‘nostalgic’. If that’s the case, it’s an unfortunate and untenable position”. Followup here. simpleposie question for the day #129 | Jennifer McMackon http://jennifermcmackon.tripod.com/simpleposie/index.blog?entry_id=374888 “…is prompted by a post that appeared the other day on Sally McKay’s blog with reference to a post by Dan at Iconoduel on the subject of a chapbook by James Elkins called ‘What Happened to Art Criticism’. I took umbrage with Sally for intimating that the commentary on Iconoduel (which initially consisted largely of quotations by Elkins himself but which has admirably since been readdressed) might suffice in lieu of reading Elkin’s 85 page (slimmer than the Communist Manifesto) text – and also for the suggestion that source material is no longer of interest to jaded readers of art criticism.” Who’d have thought art criticism was such a hot topic? | Sally McKay http://www.digitalmediatree.com/sallymckay/?28327 “Who’d have thought art criticism was such a hot topic? The old-style stuff was moldy and dry, the new-style stuff is either glib and undemanding, or esoteric and niche. Interesting that so many of us (myself included) seem to care about it with some sort of passion. A few months ago this blog saw a glut of posts, spurred by a panel discussion in Toronto about whether or not criticism is irrelevant. A few days ago a really good post appeared at Iconoduel, a report on James Elkins’ essay What Happened to Art Criticism? Iconoduel is a very interesting art blog from Chicago, written with insight and clarity by ‘Dan,’ who seems to have a cool and solid head on his shoulders. Read his post on Elkins (and then, like I’m thinking, you might not have to read Elkins!*).” Follow up here. Resisting the Dangerous Journey: The Crisis in Journalistic Criticism | Michael Brenson http://www.warholfoundation.org/paperseries/article4.htm “In the last few years this unofficial conspiracy of silence among critics about other critics has damaged the profession. It is not based on mutual respect and support but on self-protectiveness and laziness. It has discouraged an essential discussion of the responsibilities of critics to face issues, including the issue of criticism, and the consequences of not facing them. I believe that art criticism is failing miserably to meet the challenges of this time, and that art and artists, and indeed the artistic culture of this country, are suffering as a result. American art, artists and art institutions are struggling, and because so few critics have been willing to participate in this struggle and examine their role in its development and outcome, art criticism, as a whole, is in trouble.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Tuesday 27 July 2004 @ 10:09 PM
04w30:1 The Comeau Broadcasting Corporation? Posted July 20th, 2004 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2004 week 30 number 1 (the comeau broadcasting corporation?) Having learned from experts the value of self-promotion, I feel today’s subject line requires some explanation. It is only that I’ve found two articles on CBC’s site – part of their ‘Arts Features’ page which pick up on a couple of things which I had noticed and commented on in my little blog I call “Commentary” and which encapsulates one of the good reads I sent out last week. It is with some embarrassment that I send out the links to my versions of these subjects, since the CBC’s writers are clearly professional while I am nothing more than a desktop dilettante. Ah well, here you go anyway. – Timothy ——————————————————————— Warrior queens and blind critics | Robin Rowland http://www.cbc.ca/arts/features/kingarthur/ “Across North America, the film critics have largely scoffed at the premise – Arthur as a Dark Age cavalry commander – and in that they have revealed a collective failure of basic journalism: accurate reporting.” In advertising, the Scots are hot | Dan Brown http://www.cbc.ca/arts/features/scots_advertising/ “It’s hard not to notice how many television commercials have Scottish characters in them these days. From the guy who gets perturbed at bar patrons who don’t treat Keith’s beer with respect to the impossibly small spokesman for Kellogg’s to the tight-fisted uncle in the Money Mart spots, the Scots are currently the most overrepresented minority in TV advertising. It’s hard not to notice these characters for one simple reason: they yell a lot. In fact, they behave exactly as non-Scottish people expect the Scottish to behave: they’re quick to anger and slow to spend money. They’re stereotypes, in other words.” Artorius Rex | Timothy Comeau http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/commentary/2004/07/artorius-rex_07.html “What the reviews of King Arthur are failing to acknowledge – for no other reason than the apparent ignorance of the critics (otherwise I feel they should clarify their criticism with this knowledge) is that any one who has looked into this story knows, it was made up in the late Medieval Era, and further, was made up as Kingly Propaganda. It would be as if the President of the United States, seeking to assert a dictatorship, had someone write a story connecting his bloodline to the throne of England, and somehow made it seem that the Revolutionary War ended in a treaty of peace with a country later renamed Airstrip One. […] We should be aware that the ‘fictionalization’ of history has for most centuries been exactly how that field was conducted. Based on hearsay and rumour, people would write down what they’d heard – and what they heard may have included heavy doses of speculation. An oral history got taken up by Homer and turned into the Illiad; Edward I, wanting to legitimize his reign, took up the oral history of Arthur and began the process that would lead to Malory. Fictional history has for centuries also served as ‘practical history’ that is, what most people are exposed to and use in their lives, to whatever extant that history proves useful. Shakespeare’s History Plays were not going to be cross-referenced and looked into by the 16th Century audiences. They paid their penny and left the theatre knowing more about the past then they had when they’d entered.” Canada’s Angry Scotsman | Timothy Comeau http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/commentary/2004/03/canadas-angry-scotsman.html “I’m currently a little tired of overhearing aggressive Scotsman on TV. There is currently an angry Scotsman on commercials for Alexander Keith’s, Kellog’s Nutra-Grain Mini-Bites and Money Mart. What’s horrible about them all is that they all seem based on Mike Myers’ ‘If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap!’ skit from his SNL days over ten years ago, and expanded upon in his 1993 film, So I Married an Ax Murderer. The angry Scottish father’s rant about his son’s big head is lifted almost verbatim in the Mini-Bites commercial. ” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Tuesday 20 July 2004 @ 6:22 PM
04w29:2 The Kooky Bush Administration Posted July 13th, 2004 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2004 week 29 number 2 (the kooky Bush administration) ——————————————————————— Sometimes I Hate To Be Right | Mark Federman http://tinyurl.com/3nm5b “Last fall, I gave an interview to Voices Without Votes 2004 in which I speculated about the possibility of the Bush Administration delaying the election. […] A frightening prospect indeed, especially when CNN and Reuters are reporting today that the Bush Administration is investigating ways to ‘obtain the authority to delay the November presidential election in case of an attack by al Qaeda.'” Let Them Eat Wedding Cake | Barbara Ehrenreich http://tinyurl.com/3j3ng “[The Bush administration has] been avidly promoting marriage among poor women – the straight ones anyway. […] It is equally unclear how marriage will cure poor women’s No. 1 problem, which is poverty – unless, of course, the plan is to draft C.E.O.’s to marry recipients of T.A.N.F. (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families). Left to themselves, most women end up marrying men of the same social class as their own, meaning – in the case of poverty-stricken women – blue-collar men. But that demographic group has seen a tragic decline in earnings in the last couple of decades.” Bush plans to screen whole US population for mental illness | Jeanne Lenzer http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7454/1458 “While some praise the plan’s goals, others say it protects the profits of drug companies at the expense of the public. Bush established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in April 2002 to conduct a ‘comprehensive study of the United States mental health service delivery system.’ […] Bush instructed more than 25 federal agencies to develop an implementation plan based on those recommendations. The president’s commission found that ‘despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed’ and recommended comprehensive mental health screening for ‘consumers of all ages,’ including preschool children. According to the commission, ‘Each year, young children are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviours and emotional disorders.’ Schools, wrote the commission, are in a ‘key position’ to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at the schools. The commission also recommended ‘Linkage [of screening] with treatment and supports’ including ‘state-of-the-art treatments’ using ‘specific medications for specific conditions.’ The commission commended the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) as a ‘model’ medication treatment plan that ‘illustrates an evidence-based practice that results in better consumer outcomes.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, email subscribe@goodreads.ca http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Tuesday 13 July 2004 @ 3:52 PM
04w28:1 Jane Jacobs & Robert Hughes Posted July 4th, 2004 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2004 week 28 number 1 (Jane Jacobs & Robert Hughes) Thanks to Pete Dako, I think I’ve now got the RSS feed on the homepage working correctly. In addition, I think my webpage was drunk, given that the design was all wonky there back and forth for a bit. What can I say, it’s been that kind of month. The new RSS url, which should work in all newsreaders, is http://feeds.feedburner.com/goodreads/oGln . For those of you currently subscribed to the feed, I would suggest resubscribing. In addition, sending out these regular got a little spotty last month since it’s now summer and all. Who wants to sit in front of computer reading? So, I imagine that it might remain a little spotty over the next couple of months and I’m sure none of us will mind. – Timothy ——————————————————————— War? Terrorists? No, Here’s What’s Really Scary | Clifford Krauss http://tinyurl.com/2sqym “In reaching her gloomy conclusions, Ms. Jacobs barely skims over such possibilities of calamity as terrorism, nuclear war and environmental degradation. Rather, she calls those mere symptoms of what she views as more fundamental, less obvious ailments: the breakdown of the family, the decline of higher education, lapses of modern science, tax systems that do not distribute money fairly and the inadequate self-regulation of professions. These, for her, are signs that the very pillars that support society are rotting. She says it is natural for societies to ‘make mistakes and get off balance,’ but then they correct themselves. ‘What seems different about this situation is the stabilizers themselves are in trouble,’ she said one recent afternoon. ‘If the stabilizers go, what do we depend on?’ “ That’s showbusiness | Robert Hughes http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1250525,00.html “Too much has happened in art. Not all of that ‘too much’, admittedly, is compelling or even interesting, but the ground is choked with events that defy brief, coherent summary. […] Most of the ‘1980s artists’ over whom such a fuss was made have turned out to be merely rhetorical, or inept, or otherwise fallen by the wayside. […] Styles come and go, movements briefly coalesce (or fail to, more likely), but there has been one huge and dominant reality overshadowing Anglo-Euro-American art in the past 25 years, and The Shock of the New came out too early to take account of its full effects. This is the growing and tyrannous power of the market itself, which has its ups and downs but has so hugely distorted nearly everyone’s relationship with aesthetics. […] The art world is now so swollen with currency and the vanity of inflated reputation that it is taking on some of the less creditable aspects of showbiz. […] Showbiz controls journalism by controlling access. The art world hopes to do the same, though on a more piddly level. No other domain of culture would try this one on. “ —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, email subscribe@goodreads.ca http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Sunday 04 July 2004 @ 1:10 PM
04w27:2 Religion? Posted July 3rd, 2004 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2004 week 27 number 2 (religion?) ——————————————————————— Fight the power | James Verini http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4960930-110760,00.html “Only a quarter century into its history, hip-hop has not only taken over American popular culture, but it has also gained a surprising respect among the intelligentsia. […] On the other side of the debate there are not as many prominent voices. In fact, there is really only one: John McWhorter, a black professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, and an unabashed opponent of rap. McWhorter finds the music pernicious and humiliating. He thinks of it as the musical manifestation of the worst traits of black America, particularly, and America generally. […] Ask McWhorter the question he’s been asked countless times since throwing his hat into the ring several years ago: why does he hate rap? Surprisingly, he says he doesn’t. ‘I like listening to rap, actually; the problem is that it’s very, very catchy. The poetry is interesting, the rhythms are fantastic. But when I hear it, I hear it from a distance. For some people this music is a religion, and I don’t mean religion in a hyperbolic way. It’s at the point where a lot of people have never known the world without it. It’s all the music they listen to. They wake up to it, they lose their virginity to it, they go to sleep to it, it’s what they hear when they go to clubs. They have a vague sense of it as part of some political movement. It’s a body language, it’s a way of speaking. It’s a creed. It’s literally a religion.'” In Art We Trust (Since We Can’t Explain It) | Mia Fineman http://tinyurl.com/38ak6 “‘Artists are the new clergy, the monks and nuns of our day,’ he said. ‘When you see a man dressed in black walking down the street in Los Angeles or Manhattan, is he more likely to be a priest or an artist?’ […] In his current ‘Art Ministry’ project, Mr. Melamid uses religion as a lens through which to examine the ingrained pieties and genius worship of museum culture. ‘The whole idea of art is based on belief,’ he said in an interview after the lecture. ‘You cannot explain it, you cannot understand it. Just try reading art criticism — all you can do is have faith.’ While the project has its parodic aspects — the Art Ministry’s motto is ‘Close your mind, open your eyes’ — he insists that his message is sincere, asking, in his heavy Russian accent, ‘Why the truth cannot be funny?'” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, email subscribe@goodreads.ca http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Saturday 03 July 2004 @ 2:25 PM
04w24:2 Og Caligula Posted June 8th, 2004 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2004 week 24 number 2 (Oh Caligula) ——————————————————————— Bush’s Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides | Doug Thompson http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_4636.shtml “President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind. […] ‘It reminds me of the Nixon days,’ says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. ‘Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That’s the mood over there.’ […] Aides say the President gets ‘hung up on minor details,’ micromanaging to the extreme while ignoring the bigger picture. He will spend hours personally reviewing and approving every attack ad against his Democratic opponent and then kiss off a meeting on economic issues. […] Among top officials, Bush’s inner circle is shrinking. Secretary of State Colin Powell has fallen out of favor because of his growing doubts about the administration’s war against Iraq. The President’s abrupt dismissal of CIA Directory George Tenet Wednesday night is, aides say, an example of how he works. “ —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, email subscribe@goodreads.ca emailed by Timothy on Tuesday 08 June 2004 @ 3:52 PM
04w23:1 Jon Stewart's Commencement Address Posted May 30th, 2004 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2004 week 23 number 1 (Jon Stewart’s Commencement Address) ——————————————————————— Jon Stewart’s (’84) Commencement Address | Jon Stewart http://www.wm.edu/news/index.php?id=3650 “I am honored to be here and to receive this honorary doctorate. When I think back to the people that have been in this position before me from Benjamin Franklin to Queen Noor of Jordan, I can’t help but wonder what has happened to this place. Seriously, it saddens me. As a person, I am honored to get it; as an alumnus, I have to say I believe we can do better. […] I’m sure my fellow doctoral graduates -who have spent so long toiling in academia, sinking into debt, sacrificing God knows how many years of what, in truth, is a piece of parchment that in truth has been so devalued by our instant gratification culture as to have been rendered meaningless – will join in congratulating me. Thank you. […] Lets talk about the real world for a moment. […] I don’t really know to put this, so I’ll be blunt. We broke it. Please don’t be mad. I know we were supposed to bequeath to the next generation a world better than the one we were handed. So, sorry. I don’t know if you’ve been following the news lately, but it just kinda got away from us. Somewhere between the gold rush of easy internet profits and an arrogant sense of endless empire, we heard kind of a pinging noise, and uh, then the damn thing just died on us. So I apologize. But here’s the good news. You fix this thing, you’re the next greatest generation, people. You do this – and I believe you can – you win this war on terror, and Tom Brokaw’s kissing your ass from here to Tikrit, let me tell ya. And even if you don’t, you’re not gonna have much trouble surpassing my generation. If you end up getting your picture taken next to a naked guy pile of enemy prisoners and don’t give the thumbs up you’ve outdid us.” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself from this list, email subscribe@goodreads.ca emailed by Timothy on Sunday 30 May 2004 @ 12:07 PM
04w22:3 The Week in Art Posted May 29th, 2004 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2004 week 22 number 3 (the week in art) ——————————————————————— No sketch please, we’re British | Peter Goddard http://tinyurl.com/2jaaa “On Saturday, Jason Witalis was happily sketching an ancient head at the Eternal Egypt exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum. It would help him remember what he’d seen, he says. ‘I get more out of it.’ Then a ROM guard came up and stopped him flat. Busted. The 29-year-old Toronto intern architect was nabbed by the ROM no-sketching police, caught red-handed with his crudely drawn outline of Mentuhotep II, founder of ancient Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, in his hot little hand.” When drawing art is outlawed, only outlaws will draw art | Franklin Einspruch http://www.artblog.net/index.php?name=2004-05-28-07-44-drawing “If I were in Toronto, I would get every artist in town I could to go down to the ROM, sit down in the British Museum exhibition, and draw. Call it a Draw-In. The fact that the British Museum is willing to cut off this ancient method of learning for the sake of its intellectual property rights, or whatever this is about, is vile. It is anti-art. It is vandalism against our tradition. “ A Bonfire of the Vanities | Eric Gibson http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110005138 “Art disasters normally have a visceral impact. Such incidents as the looting of the Baghdad Museum last year and the ravaging of Florence’s art treasures by floods in 1966 set the mind reeling at the thought of pieces of man’s cultural patrimony permanently lost or damaged. This time, though, I was strangely unmoved. It’s not that I think incinerating art is a good thing. It’s just that the work of these artists–as of all contemporary artists–is too new and untested to have acquired the cultural heft that makes it seem an indispensable part of one’s existence. I regret the fire happened, but I can’t quite see it as a body blow to civilization.[…] another critic, Danny Serota (no relation to Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota), suggested the burned-out warehouse be preserved as a ‘shrine’ to conceptual art. You’d expect this kind of ditsy hyperbole from art dealers (who are paid to be enthusiastic) or from Mr. Saatchi himself. Instead it’s come largely from art critics. “ Is this Britart’s ground zero? | Adrian Searle http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1225496,00.html “They will see it as divine retribution, and perhaps feel a pleasurable little glow, not from the radiated heat from the fire, but of schadenfreude, especially as so many of the destroyed works are in the collection of Charles Saatchi. A rumour circulating yesterday suggested that Saatchi has been trying to buy the site, though one can’t imagine exactly why, and it is being talked of as Brit Art’s ground zero. A generation has not quite gone up in smoke, though there are those who will see it thus. ” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself from this list, email subscribe@goodreads.ca http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Saturday 29 May 2004 @ 8:29 PM
04w22:2 Fat Posted May 27th, 2004 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2004 week 22 number 2 (fat) Highly recommended code red. The first one’s title is coloured red today because I’m trying out a new rating system. I’ll admit that some of these good reads have only really been interesting, while others are “must reads” since they’re so educational and enlightening. How do I distinguish them from the rest? Well, today I’ll try colouring their titles red. The first article to be so endowed comes to us from Harvard magazine; so we know that it’s intellectually nutritious, beyond it’s subject matter, tracing America’s – and humanity’s – relationship to food and the current obesity issue. This one had a startling breadth of coverage, explaining not only why the waistlines are expanding but why our wisdom teeth are impacting and I can’t recommend it highly enough. In keeping with the concept of this posting and it’s amazing bites, it is quoted a bit more heavily that usual. – Timothy ——————————————————————— The Way We Eat Now | Craig Lambert http://www.harvard-magazine.com/on-line/050465.html “Many foreigners already view Americans as rich, greedy over-consumers, stuffing themselves with far more than their share of the planet’s resources, and obese American travelers waddling through international airports and hotel lobbies only reinforce that image. Yet our fat problem is becoming a global one as food corporations export our sugary, salty, fatty diet: Beijing has more than a hundred McDonald’s franchises […] Personal responsibility surely does play a role, but we also live in a ‘toxic environment’ that in many ways discourages healthy eating […] you’d want to make healthful foods widely available, inexpensive, and convenient, and unhealthful foods relatively less so. Instead, we’ve done the opposite.’ Never in human experience has food been available in the staggering profusion seen in North America today. We are awash in edibles shipped in from around the planet; seasonality has largely disappeared. Food obtrudes itself constantly, seductively, into our lives?on sidewalks, in airplanes, at gas stations and movie theaters. ‘Caloric intake is directly related to gross national product per capita,’ says Moore professor of biological anthropology Richard Wrangham. […] This represents a drastic change from the 1950s, when people ate far more of their meals at home, with their families, and at a leisurely pace. The 1950s were also an era in which the kitchen?not the television room?was the heart of the home. […] The old order Amish of Ontario, Canada, have escaped much of that advertising, and the TV viewing as well. They have an obesity rate of 4 percent, less than one-seventh the U.S. norm. Yet the Amish eat heartily, and not all health food: pancakes, ham, cake, and milk?but also ample amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables. It seems that the secret to the ‘Amish paradox’ is their low-technology lifestyle, which entails vastly more physical activity than its modern correlate. […] ‘The Amish are not freaks,’ says professor of anthropology Daniel Lieberman, a skeletal biologist. ‘They are just anachronisms. Human beings are adapted for endurance exercise. We evolved to be long-distance runners?running a marathon is not a freak activity. We can outrun just about any other creature.’ “ The Starving Criminal | Theodore Dalrymple http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_4_oh_to_be.html “From the dietary point of view, freedom has the same effect upon them as a concentration camp; incarceration restores them to nutritional health. This is a new phenomenon, at least on the scale on which I now see it. Last week, for example, I treated in my hospital a skeletal man who had been released from prison only two months before and had in that short time lost 44 pounds. A recidivist, he had served many short sentences for theft, and his weight went up and down according to whether he was in prison or at liberty. This is a common enough pattern of weight gain and weight loss among the males of my city?s underclass. It has a meaning quite alien to those who believe that modern malnutrition is merely a symptom of poverty and inequality. […] Not all the malnourished are drug-takers, however. It is when you inquire into eating habits, not just recent but throughout entire lifetimes, that all this malnutrition begins to make sense. The trail is a short one between modern malnutrition and modern family […] In fact, he told me that he had never once eaten at a table with others in the last 15 years. Eating was for him a solitary vice, something done almost furtively, with no pleasure attached to it and certainly not as a social event. The street was his principal dining room, as well as his trash can: and as far as food was concerned, he was more a hunter-gatherer than a man living in a highly evolved society.” When Real Food Isn’t an Option | Donald G. McNeil Jr. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/weekinreview/23mcne.html?pagewanted=print&position= “In a world where the rich spend millions on ways to avoid carbohydrates and the United Nations declares obesity a global health threat, the cruel reality is that far more people struggle each day just to get enough calories. In Malawi, children stand on the roadsides selling skewers of roasted mice. In Mozambique, when grasshoppers eat the crops, people turn the tables and eat them, calling the fishy-tasting bugs ‘flying shrimp.’ In Liberia during the 1989 civil war, every animal in the national zoo was devoured but a one-eyed lion. Dogs and cats disappeared from the streets of the capital. ” NOTE: The New York Times requires registration; but if you’ve looked at NYT content before and haven’t deleted your cookies, that may not be necessary. However if prompted, use the following username: goodreader100 and password: goodreads (courtesy of goodreads.ca). The big fat con story | Paul Campos http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1200549,00.html “In 1853, an upper-class Englishman could be quite unselfconscious about the fact that the mere sight of the urban proletariat disgusted him. In 2003, any upper-class white American liberal would be horrified to imagine that the sight of, say, a lower-class Mexican-American woman going into a Wal-Mart might somehow elicit feelings of disgust in his otherwise properly sensitised soul. But the sight of a fat woman – make that an ‘obese’ – better yet a ‘morbidly [sic] obese’ woman going into Wal-Mart… ah, that is something else again. ” ‘Soft flesh feels very, very good’ | R.M. Vaughan http://tinyurl.com/26cla “Anti-fat hysteria is everywhere. A Canadian chain of health clubs has a catchy radio jingle that features the mean-spirited lyrics, ‘Don’t wanna be a fat guy, a fat guy — jiggly, wiggly, Jello-y fat guy!’ Even more staid institutions, such as the Canadian Paediatric Society, have joined the anti-feeding frenzy, releasing a shrill, overwrought report last fall that called childhood obesity an ‘epidemic.’ The report was endorsed, not surprisingly, by various physical-education lobby groups — the same folks who tortured you with chin-ups and ‘shirts v. skins’ games in Grade 7. Large folks looking for relief from the ostensibly more open-minded art world have found little to comfort them on the gallery walls. When not presenting fat people as grotesques, the Western art world tends to represent body fat as a metaphor for all that is wrong and decadent in our affluent society. ” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself from this list, email subscribe@goodreads.ca http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Thursday 27 May 2004 @ 2:26 PM
